747 East 17th Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Sovernor William Aiken / Robinson-Aiken House

Statement of Significant:
The George Arbuckle House, built in about 1890, is significant as a unique type of Gothic Revival house in Utah. Unlike the delicately decorative, more common manifestation on the (Gothic Revival in the state which incorporated bargeboards and elaborate porch detailing, the Arbuckle house is a more classical, simplified representation of that style. Particularly rare in Utah domestic architecture are the pointed arch windows on the second floor and the fan type decoration on the porch frieze. Although the house has been altered, it retains those characteristics which make i t as an outstanding and unusual ' representative of the Gothic Revival Style.

On a late 1850s map of the Five Acre Plat "A" (bounded by present day Ninth South, Second and Fourth West, Twenty-First South, and Thirteenth and Fifteenth East) C.H. Bryan appears as the holder of Lot 2, Block 15, a result of the drawing held by Brigtera Young on September 28, 1848, in which parcels of land were awarded to various pioneers for the purpose of farming the following year, 1849. Lot 2 is bounded by present streets Logan Avenue, Seventh East, Seventeenth South and Eighth East. (Seventeenth South was first known as Eleventh South. On the 1911 Sanbom Map it was designated Tempest Avenue. I t later received its present name). The first recorded owner of that property to be found in Salt Lake County abstract records, however, was Asa Calkin who sold Lots 1, 2 and 3 to Claudius V. Spencer, a laboring man, October 19, 1865. On February 20, 1866, the property was sold to Henry (Seorg, a tailor. Jacob Gibson, a teamster residing on the west side of Ninth East below the city limits which ended at Ninth South, paid Henry George $3,000 for Lots 1, 2 and 3 on May 24, 1870. Upon Mr. Gibson's death his widow, Sarah, sold Lot 2 for $3805 to Leonard G. Hardy, August 13, 1889. Ife soon divided and resold the property. Mr. Hardy, with Oscar H. Hardy, Alonzo Young and Elias Morris, was a principal in the general merchandise firm of Hardy, Young and Company, located at 28 and 30 South Main Street.

In February, 1890, George Arbuckle, an immigrant from Scotland and at the time an employee of Hardy, Young and Company, purchased the property at 747 East "Eleventh" South from Leonard G. (his employer) and Miriam Y. Hardy, for the sum of $500, in the name of his wife Elizabeth S. Allen Arbuckle. On this property Mr. Arbuckle built a brick, 1 1/2 story Gothic Revival style home, most likely in the year of 1890. This date cannot be precisely authenticated,''" but a daughter, still living, Mrs. Edith Coppin, recalls that 1890 was the year. Her family, she says, resided with Mr. Arbuckle's father-in-law, William L. N. Allen, at 34 "I" Street while awaiting completion of the home, a fact confirmed by information in the Polk Directory of 1890; in the 1891-92 edition of the directory, Mr. Arbuckle is noted as residing "n s Eleventh South, bet 7th and 8th East”.

Research has revealed no solid information regarding the architect or builder of the home, but a daughter, Mrs. Marie Armstrong, says that she always had the impression that her uncle, William L. N. Allen, Jr., her mother's brother, who was a contractor and builder, had built the home. The possiblilit y exists that Elias Morris with whom Mr. Arbuckle may have had an association at Hardy, Young and Company, played some role in construction of the home, especially considering the highly professional brick work evident on the exterior. In addition to his involvement with Hardy, Young, Mr. Morris was also a contractor and builder handling mantels, tiles, grates, marble and granite monuments, fir e brick, cement, piping, etc.

George Arbuckle was born April 8, 1859 in Glasgow, Scotland, a son of James and Agnes Thompson Arbuckle. Converts to the L.D.S. Church, his mother and brother came first to Utah, followed in 1872 by George and his father. In 1909 George was made bishop of the L.D.S. Emerson Ward in Granite Stake, a position he held for 11 years.

Elizabeth S. Allen Arbuckle, his wife, was the daughter of William L. N. Allen, an L.D.S convert-emigrant from England who came to Utah in 1853. Their marriage resulted in a family of ten children, in order: George Allen, William L. N., Florence, twins Edith and Edwin, Dumont, and two more sets of i twins, Marie and Milton, and Gladys and Grant.

At the time George built his home in 1890, he was employed as a clerk at the Hardy, Young Company, a retail firm dealing in dry goods, groceries, boots, shoes and other general merchandise items. In an interview recorded in Tales of a Triumphant People George Arbuckle himself described the area at the time he built his home: "This territory was al l farming country, and there were very few houses. I drove up Seventh East with my family and had a cow tied behind the buggy. I remember that there were only three houses between Ninth South and what is now Seventeenth South, and one was Brother Reich's house, an old adobe house (now crumbled) on Seventh East and Roosevelt Avenue; and two frame houses, owned by a Mr. Hoilister and a Mr. Sprague, on Seventh East and Harrison Avenue. Sprague came from the East and was an Internal Revenue office r for the Territory of Utah." Ife spent the last third y years of his business life as a traveling salesman for ZCMI Wholesale Grocery Company. His wife died in 1920, and upon his retirement in 1928 he sold his home to the Bradford family, continuing an active life until 1945 when he died at the age of 86.

On April 8, 1920, George Arbuckle transferred ownership of his home and lot from his wife to himself. His wife died shortly after, but he continued to live in the horae until 1928 when he sold it to Hyal Lee Bradford. Hyal Lee ' Bradford and his wife Mabel Snith Bradford moved to the home with their three children Florence, Charmion and Lee in 1928. Mr. Bradford had been a school principal in Spanish Fork, Utah and worked in the Murray City shops when he moved to Salt Lake. He was frequently absent from horae for long periods of time on L.D.S. missions to Hawaii, the Eastern States and to New Zealand. Ife spoke Maori fluently and was translating the Book of Mormon into that language.

Mrs. Bradford came from Logan where her father was an L.D.S. bishop for 40 years. After the death of her husband in the late 1930s, she stayed on in the house for many years, working to support herself at the Salt Lake City Post Office.

After Mr. Bradford's death, Mrs. Bradford remained in the house until 1968 when the property was sold to Harry D. and Barbara J. Camp. The Camps received title to the property August 11, 1977.

Christopher Snow Montague and Elizabeth J. Welti Montague purchased the property on April 17, 1980 from the Camps who moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. The Montagues are presently living in the home while doing rehabilitation and restoration work, intending to make i t their permanent residence.